Punjab Bans Handwritten Bills at Restaurants and Marriage Halls

The Punjab Revenue Authority has banned handwritten and informal receipts at restaurants, hotels, coffee shops and marriage halls across the province.

Every bill must now be generated through the Electronic Invoice Monitoring System, known as EIMS, and must carry a PRA QR code. A bill book, a kitchen order slip or a scribbled total is no longer a valid receipt.

Businesses that do not comply face fines reported at Rs 400,000 to Rs 1 million, and repeat offenders can have their premises sealed for up to a month.

What a legal receipt looks like now

Four things have to be on the receipt you are handed:

The QR code is the part to look for. It is the difference between a receipt that has been reported to the tax authority and a piece of paper that has not.

Businesses have also been told to display a QR code prominently at the premises, not only on the bill.

This is the Punjab authority, not FBR

This is the single most common confusion on the subject, so it is worth separating properly.

The Federal Board of Revenue runs the point of sale system for federal sales tax on goods. That is the system behind the till receipt at a supermarket or a clothing retailer. We covered how to check one and how to report a fake in our guide to reporting fake and non-POS invoices to FBR.

The Punjab Revenue Authority collects Punjab sales tax on services. A meal, a coffee, a hotel room or a wedding hall booking is a service. In Punjab, that falls to PRA and to EIMS.

So a restaurant bill in Lahore and a grocery till receipt in Lahore sit under two different systems, run by two different authorities, with two different QR codes. Neither replaces the other.

One more boundary. PRA's writ is Punjab. Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan each have their own revenue authorities and their own rules, so a restaurant in Karachi is not covered by this notification.

Where this came from

The receipt ban did not appear out of nowhere. It follows a decision taken days earlier.

On Friday 7 August 2026, a performance review meeting chaired by PRA Chairman Moazzam Iqbal Sipra adopted what the authority called a zero tolerance policy for province wide EIMS implementation in the hotels and restaurants sector.

That meeting directed field formations to ensure complete implementation, told enforcement teams to intensify operations against fake invoices and fraudulent sales reporting across all districts, and promised strengthened digital surveillance to identify businesses manipulating sales records.

The receipt notification is that policy turned into a rule. Read together, the direction of travel is clear enough: the authority believes a meaningful share of restaurant and marriage hall sales are not being reported, and the paper bill book is how.

What businesses have to do

1. Register with PRA and get the business integrated with EIMS.
2. Issue every bill through the system. The bill book stops being an option, not just for tax purposes but as the customer's receipt.
3. Print the QR code on the receipt, and display one at the premises.
4. Stop using kitchen order slips or unpaid bills as the final document handed to a customer.
5. Keep your sales records intact. Tampering with them, or obstructing officials, carries separate action beyond the receipt penalty.

PRA publishes an eIMS guide and a technical specification for approved fiscal devices on its own website. If you are integrating, that specification is the document your vendor needs, and it is worth taking from PRA directly rather than from a reseller.

PRA's UAN is 042-111-000-772 and its office is at 5-B Danepur Road, GOR-1, Lahore. We read both on the authority's own site on 10 August 2026.

Provincial sales tax registration is separate from your federal position with FBR. If the business is not yet on the Active Taxpayers List, that is a different process and we walk through it in our guide to becoming a tax filer.

On the penalty figures, we are being careful

The Rs 400,000 to Rs 1 million range, and the sealing of premises for up to a month, are reported consistently across several outlets. We are still labelling them reported rather than verified.

The reason is simple. PRA's website loads but is a thin shell, and the notification carrying those amounts was not on it when we looked. Our rule is that a figure gets stated as fact only when we have read it on the responsible authority's own page, and we have not.

The substance is not in doubt. The exact numbers should be confirmed against the notification before anyone relies on them in a dispute.

What a customer can actually do

You are not the tax inspector, and there is no reward scheme here for you to claim. But there are two useful things.

Look for the QR code. If a restaurant or marriage hall in Punjab hands you a handwritten total on a slip, that is now outside the rules. Asking for a proper receipt is reasonable and it is the thing the system relies on.

Keep the receipt for a large booking. A wedding hall payment is one of the biggest single transactions most families make. A receipt with a business name, address and number on it is what you need if the service is not delivered, and it is what a complaint rests on. Where that goes wrong, the route is in our guide to taking a complaint to consumer court.

If you are being asked to pay in a way that avoids a receipt entirely, understand what that is. It is not a discount being offered to you out of kindness. It is the tax that is not being collected, and the price is usually the same either way.

Questions readers are asking

Are handwritten receipts illegal in Punjab now?

At restaurants, hotels, coffee shops and marriage halls, yes. The Punjab Revenue Authority has banned handwritten and informal receipts and requires bills to be generated through the EIMS system with a PRA QR code.

What is the fine for not issuing an EIMS receipt?

Reported at Rs 400,000 to Rs 1 million, with premises liable to be sealed for up to one month for repeat violations. We could not read those amounts on PRA's own site, so treat them as reported.

What must be printed on the receipt?

The business name, the business address, a receipt number and the PRA QR code. Kitchen order slips and unpaid bills cannot be given instead.

Is this the same as the FBR POS system?

No. FBR runs point of sale for federal sales tax on goods. PRA runs EIMS for Punjab sales tax on services. A restaurant meal is a service, so it falls to PRA.

Does this apply outside Punjab?

No. This is a Punjab Revenue Authority notification. Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan have their own revenue authorities and separate rules.

Does it cover marriage halls as well as restaurants?

Yes. The notification names restaurants, hotels, coffee shops and marriage halls.

What if a business refuses to give a proper receipt?

You can raise it with PRA on 042-111-000-772. For a service failure rather than a tax issue, a receipt is what a consumer complaint is built on, so get one before you pay if you can.